Halcyon Vintage and a nursery in the clouds...

September 02, 2014

I have now had the pleasure of working with the marvelous Connie Carroll and her crew of vintage gals at Halcyon, a vintage clothing store on Robinson St. Check out the project page for all the lovely pictures and details...

CLICK HERE FOR THE HALCYON PROJECT PAGE

... because I am going to use this blog space to tell you the story of Alcyone, the greek myth that Halcyon's new mural illustrates!

Alcyone was a fair maiden who loved a fair man named Ceyx. They did not use those names with each other, however; instead they used 'Zeus' and 'Hera' as pet names. As we all know, this is a recipe for disaster in an age when the real Zeus was known mainly for either smiting or impregnating. To punish these uppity youths, Zues chose the former activity and sunk Ceyx's ship while he was on a long voyage.

Hera, choosing to play good cop, sent Hermes to gently inform Alcyone of her lover's watery doom and comfort her in her grief. Morpheus, the skilled diplomat that he is, chose to visit Alcyone in the form of Ceyx himself. You can imagine the emotional roller coaster Alcyone faced upon seeing her lover (:D!) who then points out her lover's body floating in the water just around the corner (...??!) and then turns into Hermes and flies away (???!!!?? D: ) leaving the real body in the water.

Understandably, she throws herself down next to Ceyx and drowns.

Zeus (probably berated by Hera) brings Alcyone and Ceyx back to life by turning them into the first Kingfisher birds (several species of which are now named after these lively characters). Consequentially Alcyone's father, the god of the wind, forever more would calm the wintery storms over the ocean for two weeks a year to allow kingfishers to make nests and lay their eggs by the sea.

This time of calm is the origin of the term Halcyon Days... and thus, Halcyon Vintage's name nostalgically brings to mind a time of unusual peace, tranquility, and love.

The two kingfishers on the right below are named after this myth, but for the mural Connie elected to show a belted kingfisher, the only type of kingfisher native to the Richmond area.

Working on this mural really was a pleasure thanks to everyone at Halcyon, and it's always fun to work on an image with a substantial story behind it.

Now, I have another mural to share here as well! This is my first nursery mural, and was a real personal challenge for me. I chose a very deceptive and complex subject matter that lost me in its depth and nuance:

clouds that look like animals and stuff

I sincerely hope this future child is not overwhelmed with the angst of this piece.

But seriously, this was one of those paintings that fought me tooth and nail. The subdued, peaceful final product you see here took every perfectionistic bone in my body to wrangle into being.

I actually finished painting this several months ago, but the Carleys were kind enough to let me come back after they'd put their new nursery all together to document it. Now that I've had a little time away from it, I have enough perspective to be really happy with how it turned out! The Carleys all believe I'm a little crazy, I think, and say they've found it wonderful the whole time, so I thank them for their patience and sanity. I'm excited to have something to show new and expecting parents as an example of my nursery-fu. I'm also really excited to find out the gender of the newest Carley - this mural was specifically designed to be gender-neutral... :)

Please take a look at the Park Ave. project page to see all the pictures and details of this mural!

CLICK HERE FOR THE PARK AVE (CLOUD-NURSERY) PROJECT PAGE

That's all for now friends and future-friends. I have a lot of self-promotion upcoming-event stuff to share later, but you've been patient enough for now. Suffice to say I really need to order a jumbo batch of business cards...

Land of Ice and Fire

August 17, 2014

My parents decided to bring my brother and I on a fabulous amazing extravagant week-long trip to ICELAND for summer vacation this year! And when I say fabulous amazing extravagant I mean ~~*RoAd TrIp*~~ We've done a series of road trips over the years, to places like Savannah, GA, New Orleans, LA, and Niagara Falls (twice). We figured it was time we leveled up to Road Trip: International Mode.

We've been here since last Monday and we are leaving tomorrow. I figured now was a good time to share a couple of highlights from this place, because once I get back it'll be time to unpack (from Cobalt AND Iceland) and dive into the Halcyon Vintage mural....! More on that later.

So without further ado: Some Things I Have Learned In Iceland

1. Sheep go where they want to

2. Sheep go where they want to

also this house that you've definitely seen elsewhere on the internet is indeed as well-located as it seems

3. Sheep go where they want to

That's really about it. Iceland in a nutshell for ya.

To honor the fact that this post should probably have something to do with murals, here are my two favorites of the plentiful street art/mural work that Reykjavik has to offer:

Okay that is all. I'm catching a ride on this tiny iceberg so I'll see you stateside soon!

Cobalt Studios

August 06, 2014

I write to you from the middle of my third week at Cobalt Studios, the premier scene-painting studio of the Northeast. I'm taking part in their 3-week Summer Scene Painting Workshop, and so far the experience has exceeded my expectations on all counts.

There are 10 other students here, and each person has their own little bedroom in the big farmhouse. Mine is called "Too", and handily came with a question on the door to ponder as I exit every day:

Our teachers are Rachel Keebler (one of the two founders of Cobalt) and Kimb Williamson (a Set Designer and Theater Instructor from Arizona). They tag team lessons, dispense jokes-of-the-day, and help us cook dinner.

The studio space is amazing - it's a big warehouse of a building, the open space of which is called the 'deck'. The deck can fit two full sized backdrops for plays spread out on the floor at the same time. There's a big mixing room for paint with two bathtubs for sinks, and hundreds of gallons of paint. Cobalt Studios was designed to not only be a professional scene painting studio but also a school, so everything is designed for a small crowd.

So far my favorite things I've learned have been the many house-made tools they use - bamboo sticks to extend brushes to paint on the ground while standing, giant sticks to draw straight lines, paint bucket carriers... To quote Gary, it's been like "drinking from a fire hose."

This photo below shows one half of the deck.

It may not look it at first glance, but this very organized paint room has a place for everything, and most of those places are even labelled. The house is even better. It's a marvel of communal workspaces.

They keep us busy enough that that's all I can manage to put up for now, but we are doing a big digital photo-swap soon, so expect a bunch of project documentation as well as hiking pictures!